Graduated IBOLC Yesterday

April 5th, 2013, 07:19 PM

Hi all - I successfully graduated the Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course yesterday - overall a decent course and I definitely learned a lot. I managed to make the Commandant's List (top 20%), and if anyone has any questions I'd be more than happy to answer them. I was scheduled for Pre-Ranger in a couple of weeks but managed to injure my back during IBOLC and so will be getting physiotherapy for a few months before trying later in the year. For now it's back to catch up with my civilian employer and prepare for my unit's AT. Several forum members were very helpful in getting me information and advice for IBOLC so I hope I can do the same for others here!

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Chaplain - the training was about a 50/50 split between field and classroom. Field weeks covered Basic/Advanced Rifle Marksmanship (personally I got a lot more out of it this time vs when I did it as an 11B, because the student/cadre ratio was better and I lucked out having some excellent NCO's who genuinely wanted to teach us better techniques), Land Nav (probably the toughest course I've done yet, because of the long distances involved - I spent most of my time running during the 5 hours), Squad/Platoon Lanes, Live fires up to Platoon level, Urban Operations (probably the most fun week). Classroom weeks would cover everything from OPORD's to Leadership/Training Management, Counterinsurgency, Offensive/Defensive Operations.

Honestly the Platoon Cadre you have make the biggest difference overall. I lucked out with mine as they treated us very professionally and the focus was on teaching and instructing us rather than trying to drop/recycle people. There were others in some platoons/companies who did act unprofessionally towards the students, always send mixed messages on standards required, etc, and I would have learned a lot less and had a far worse experience had that been the case with me.

Hawks - I got Airborne School when I was at Ft Benning for 11B - they had some spots open, made the PT cutoff 280, my score was a 287 so I got to go. I don't know anyone who got that at IBOLC. For Ranger, at least with the Guard, it's entirely dependent on your State. I got my reservation before I left for IBOLC, but chose to push it back by a few months so I can get my lower back 100% again. At least in my case, the way it was explained to me, I'm in a Ranger-coded slot, and the funding is now attached to my name, so I can change my school dates without losing it. You do an RPFT while at IBOLC and I know that some guys who didn't have slots would try to use a good passing result on that to convince their state to send them - I've no idea if that helped or not.